Can't speak for ux-app but most people on HN are on macs, also a lot of people on linux.
Those who leave comments are a small fraction of the total HN traffic.
If you saw the a recent thread which asked people why they stalk HN, you'd understand that many visitors aren't start up guys, programmers or even technical in nature.
In other words, I bet HN's actual traffic log will show mobile devices and Windows as the predominant OS.
it might be my filter bubble, but if I google "hacker news mac vs windows" the only results I get are posts where people are moving away from Mac to something else[1].
[1]: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/969743/46010063-fa... (that's just the top of the page, but the whole first page is like that).
It's just that. All talk. Including the usual empty threats of "don't piss of the technical people".
Meanwhile, they're still logging into Facebook using Chrome on their Windows machines.
However when someone says "I am moving away from windows because of X" it never hits the frontpage since most people don't care since they are not on windows.
This is obviously not great quantitative research. But if I go into any co working space or coffee shop where people work on their laptops. I find a lot of people on macs, and all the technical ones are on HN. Whenever I meet technical people with a windows laptop they are never on HN.
I thought this was quite well established that HN is very apple'y, so I'm having a hard to come up with proper data to back this up.
What about you? You think the opposite?
I mostly agree with everything you said.
But I speculate, a good collection of today's "chrome leavers" here already use another browser - and are just adding fuel to the fire.
Or, they're not actually leaving chrome - just threatening, because they care.
Haha you got me! I did leave Chrome (for privacy reason) for Firefox. Not during this big debate, but during a previous one (when Firefox came out with the big Quantum update and it started to perform on the same level as Chrome). Though I haven't stated I would leave today.
It's not a big change like migrating to another country. Most plugins have add ons for all big browser platforms. I do think that you'll see a decent amount of people in this discussion on HN change browser. But for Google this is just a blip in the graph.
I'd agree with that assessment, macOS probably first, Linux second, but then you have to remember how many Windows users there are. The HN regulars are probably mostly on Mac/Linux, but I'd imagine just the drive by Windows traffic would put it at the top spot.
But there's a certain amount of irony that people are ditching Chrome, while still using an OS which literally does spy on you.
When accessing web-sites over a public network, I sort of expect (not necessarily like or agree) to be tracked and others to know what I'm doing. I'm always in the mindset of "what ever I do within this window, others will see" (regardless of browser).
For what I do on my local desktop? No. Not at all.
All this so that I could have an OS that isn't actively spying on me, and play games on it. Thank goodness valve is making progress on linux...